of arrogance and spunk
by quorra laraex
Summary: Her essence always catches him off guard since she has this extraordinary desire to get under his skin. — Daniel/Henley


**of arrogance and spunk**  
(_it's_ _in your eyes_)

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.

.

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He likes her like this.

With a smile of uncertainty prying on her lips because she's not sure and she doesn't know better and she's completely dazzled. He has her this way, and he's the only one who could actually _get_ her this way, with eyes shimmering (not involving a crowd and masculine hunks giving her a good stare while she's in nothing but a provocative, flimsy little—_leotard_, she calls it) and heart pounding (or is that his?) and just when he thinks he's got her right in the basket, roles are reversed and he'll suddenly find himself trapped within this escape artist's finger. Because this is what always happens.

She'll always find the way out of what he ties her into, with effortless attempts to get into his head and under his skin. And what could he expect, really, when fighting fire with a magician like himself.

/

"Pick a card," he had told her the first time. He excuses her light complaining about how original he was being. "Any card."

And she chooses the queen of hearts, because it's exactly what she seems to be. He can choose the easy route, which includes flicking the deck of cards and turning up the very first one to be that supreme _queen_ she had chosen—_now really, could she get _any_ more predictable_? But instead his eyes roam practically to his dismay from the deck in his hands to those amber eyes filled with suspicion and impatience.

"Well?" her hands are on her hips and she's a second away from rolling her eyes when Daniel flings the cards behind him and embeds his lips to hers, wrapping an arm around her waist to pull her against him. It's messy and a tad reckless at first, but he feels the curve of her lips and a surge of excitement as she kisses him in return, all in favor. And when he takes a breath, she's quick to retaliate. "So, what about my card?"

He chuckles, a bit awkwardly he could admit, and points to the card below the heel of her shoe, which had dragged when he pulled her into him, his face smug.

When his eyes meet hers after elevating from the cement beneath them to that riveting gaze of hers, he's baffled at the condescending smirk on her face to the way her middle and fore twist with a flick of her gloves only to reveal the queen of hearts in between those slender fingers. He bends over to pick the card from under her, only to reveal it's a joker, one that he's never kept in his deck.

He stares at her, in slight awe with a brow raised in curiosity when he knows that he wants her—as a partner, he clarifies, an assistant for the art, his works. She's a perfect looker for the eye, with quick responses, steady ground, and a bit of spunk that he admittedly does rather enjoy. It makes him ponder over the bright future she could have.

/

The second time was purely based on his hormonal lack of control. Wrapped in confidence and the incapability to ignore his high pride, he had strictly rejected Henley's compromise of living together. Mainly because of the lack in pay she had as a magician's asset, affording a two bedroom apartment (which was unfortunately the only available place that was walking distance from the theatre they performed at regularly) was to her dismay, far from her reach.

"It's literally across the street," she gushes, strawberry blonde hair falling over her shoulders when she leans toward him. His posture falters as he steadies his back further behind him, as if repelling her touch like a magnet. "We wouldn't need to waste money on cab fare _or_ gas!"

"No," he declines for approximately the fourteenth time. The way she looks at him then is drenched in desperation and a vulnerability he's not used to seeing; having a girl around him for so long was quite tiring, he decides. If he's nervous, he doesn't show it. He's good at that. "I'm perfectly comfortable in my condominium."

"_Danny_," she calls him. He hates the way her voice says his name. It's mostly because for some peculiar reason it makes him weak in the knees. And slightly because her whining is _annoying_. "This will suit us both and you know it! You're _always_ late for rehearsal because you live practically an hour awa—!"

"I'm _always_," he doesn't miss the chance to air-quote her particular word, being the asshole that he is. "—late because taxi drivers are slow and it isn't my fault that traffic is existent in every street of the city."

Her face perks up then, after he had realized the mistake in his choice of words. "My point exactly! Listen, we could split the rent, easily! Half of water and electricity and grocery and all that jazz, and it'll be twice as less as what you already pay and you're the only who _always_ tells me to preserve money!"

The Atlas entertainer stops his shuffling as he eyes her with a groan.

"_Please_, Danny?" Her eyes are dark, and her intentions are darker. He already knows this. "_Danny_, c'mon!"

There she goes again, with those clever knacks up her sleeve, the feisty devil she was, always getting what she wants and what _he's_ never prepared for. He gives in before his legs do at the sound of her whimpering that damned nickname. He doesn't act upon the buckling of his knees nor does he show the color flushing his face. He abruptly turns while mustering a cold fine, before trailing toward the exit for air, embarrassingly flustered.

/

He could easily blame the next time she had been one step ahead of him, on his experience.

Which, to his misfortune, barely lived up to what have could have been, if he had _tried_ to begin with.

Standing as J. Daniel Atlas, illusionist extraordinaire-in-the-making, he believed himself to be the three S's women were undeniably attracted to—no, _enticed_ by: slick, sharp, and smooth. He lived up to his own expectations, having handed multiple fan letters with phone numbers, emails, even goddamn _addresses_.

With Henley Reeves, however, he was never able to nail the part. He could have blamed it on his unmotivated attempts to reply to these fan-girls or at least show an effort to wanting and receiving some ass, but they both knew the truth.

She's playful—teasing, too, but he's smart to not show the slightest hint of interest at how much leg she reveals from that simple "oversized" (she calls it, but _anyone_ could tell that it's farfetched) T-shirt she's fond of sleeping in. Her hair is messy and unkempt and her face is clean and almost innocent looking. He's not fooled.

It's the brink of the night when she plops herself beside him on the crimson, leather couch in the living room they had been sharing for (already) a couple of months. She notices the haystack of letters that are delivered to him almost every day on the coffee table in front of them. He pays no mind to her; doesn't even spare her a glance while he occupies himself with late repetitive runs of some television show and a useless magician wand that had come from a children's magic kit—he had just wanted the book of skills and tricks in curiosity of what's actually being taught to the minds of eight year olds. (It was a package deal, and she still thinks he's stupid for wasting fourteen bucks on a picture book, a deck of cards, and a plastic wand.) She doesn't comment this time, though; only allows a smile at the memory.

"What're you so giddy about?" Of course, Henley _would_ be up and shining and smiling at one in the morning, interfering with his alone time.

"Oh, nothing," she snickers coyly. Her attention flickers back to the mess on the wooden coffee table. "Why don't you ever accept their requests?"

"If you're referring to desperate girls with requests of cheap dinner and an invitation to meaningless sex—wait, _what_ was your question again?"

Her eyes take their signature roll before a thought sprouts in her mind, settling itself until she finds the need to voice it. "Many men would enjoy inexpensive meals accompanied by emotionless satisfaction."

"And you're saying?" His eyes never leave the blaring screen in the dim lit room, and she'd be lying if she said the way he'd toss that stupid wand and catch it while balancing the base on the palm of his hand wasn't amusing.

"Are you gay?"

Eyebrows furrowed and eyes unkeen, his head pivots to her direction to his left. "Absolutely not." He had _kissed_ her for god's sake, the first time they met. But if much thought was put into it, it could have easily been a mere distraction for his card apparatus.

"I mean, I know you've kissed me, and I can tell you've kissed other people," she begins and he listens to her intently, for once. "But you are, rather, passive when it comes to girls _jumping_ at the sight of you. I would only think that you're either gay _or_ a _virgi_—"

And then he does something that widens her eyes and is the inevitable cause of the staccato rhythm in her ribcage. He's kissing her, hard and full and reeking of lust she hadn't even _sensed_, nor knew she even _had_ when she exuberantly pounces on him, hips now straddling his, and identical half smiles on amused expressions.

"Did I prove your theory wrong?" his smug quality still intact when he hushes her. He always wins.

"Not all of them," a smirk breaks on her lips (that are _so_ damn soft) and he realizes he spoke too soon.

And effortlessly, she's seducing with the way her eyes flutter the same time her honey-induced voice has his name on her tongue that he intertwines with his own. The worthless toy of a wand is long forgotten when he finds his hands tangled in her hair and her hands removing his shirt, grazing his chest and slowly making it further down. She trails kisses along his jaw and down his neck when he decides she's good with her mouth. Her body moves against his fervently, resulting in the build of his jeans that she feels against her and she can't help but laugh.

His lips dive to her neck, bare and basically screaming at him in want, in _need_. The feel of her throat hitching in a moan is satisfaction on both their parts, and he finds himself redeemed from the fit of giggles he had gotten from her in reaction to the damned easy bulge in his pants.

It's in the way their hips are buckled on the couch and how she's on top of him, rolling inward and out on his very lap with the way she whispers _Danny_ with her breath on the shell of his ear and his face in the crook of her neck (and the fact that her skin tasted of cucumber and melons did _not_ help) when he knows it's been early, too early, but he can't contain—himself—_it_.

"God dammit," He shoves her off of him instantly, ignoring her muffled _ugh_ of irritation, while rushing to the bathroom in order to recover from his inexperienced needs and the very uncomfortable wetness in his bottoms.

"_It's only been three minutes_!" he hears her yell of indignation before cursing at himself. He wasn't psychic, but he can already tell he would get a lifetime of shit for this very personal (virginal) moment.

However, nights like these, wrapped in lust and seduction and tongues, happened to be rare and inconsecutive with misguided foreplay and even _more_ misguided feelings.

/

He should have stopped her.

He saw it coming, the buildup of frustration in her fragile little body that had once ridden his pubescent innocence and made him feel his most alive. It was in the way curious gazes transcended over time, to glares, demands, and once, what he had never been prepared for—_tears_.

J. Daniel Atlas was a man, knew the specific strengths and weaknesses of his assistant. At least, he thought he knew for a good thirteen months before he had suddenly seen her crying for the first time. And he'd been the very cause of it. Embraced with a twinge of guilt and a mind emotionally incapable of dealing with this, he had let her slip from his very hands, through the slits of his fingers that were nifty with preparation to always catch the cards, rather than something more important: her.

When he comes home from the bar and _another_ one night stand with a blonde whose name he could not care enough to remember, he shouldn't be surprised to find all her belongings gone. The last bit of her that had the slightest proof she had even lived here in the first place was the resignation letter she had left atop the marble kitchen counter. Signed and dated, Henley Reeves escaped his grasp with not a single word of good bye.

There's a feeling in his gut that he can't alleviate with pills or sleep or sex. If he could be honest, he hadn't known she had the very bravery to leave his side. She'd threaten him, yes, angered by his snarky demeanor and her small pay, as well as being treated like his personal assistant—even after work hours.

"I'll quit," she glared just the other day.

"No you won't," he muttered knowingly, condescending and coolly.

She smirked after, arms that were in the front of her chest now unfolded with those small hands on her hips, misleading him to think he has her wrapped around his magician fingers.

He's wrong, and he knows this, when he comes home to a bare apartment—and for an odd reason he does not want to name (due to that arrogant personnel) how he feels empty.

/

And _then_, just when he thought he wouldn't be working with her all over again since they had both taken their separate ways to success, (which also had him anonymously, yet constantly blog about her road to money-making and escape tricks without him—that came with the occasional rants of how it _irked_ him to no end) but here they were, jam packed in the bottom compartment of a car under piles and piles of French money.

And of course, only _Henley_ would try to strike up a nonchalant conversation of how she was actually in Europe. He tries to ignore the way their hands are touching and how their bodies are as if they're glued side by side to one another. Because as much as he had grown to miss the essence she carried, he believed he still had the right to be pissed for leaving him. (Although, in the very depth of his mind, he knew it was him at fault here. He'd never admit it, though. Not yet, at least.)

"Don't even try, Atlas," her tone is childishly conceited after she finds him looking at her after her brief unnecessary attempts at conversing. And when exactly did she start calling him by his last name? "I know the attraction you have toward me is still there. You don't need to lie to yourself."

Daniel grimaces, sneering with his usual, cocky trait, "You wish."

"I can hear your heart thudding from your chest," it's a mere observation that he takes offense to. "Are you really that nervous? Or is it because this is the closest you'll ever get to me?"

"Well, it's not as if we're risking everything to steal a grand amount of foreign money. And for your information, I cannot _breathe_ in this tiny space we're compacted in, either. Don't think for one second that I'm not uncomfortable in this place because I am and I would very well enjoy Jack's or _hell_, even Merritt's company in here, rather than you."

"And _you_ don't think for one second that I would much not rather enjoy _Merritt_'s company in this _coffin_," she says like a child, which infuriates him even more.

He scoffs in response, hating the way she knew _exactly _how to get under his skin. But, benefiting from the fact they were partners who had even lived together for over a year, it was safe to say he knew exactly how to do the same.

"It wouldn't feel like a _coffin_ if you lost a little…"

It doesn't take her long before her elbow jabs into his side with no remorse, like an instinctive reflex and he tries to suffice the groan slurring from his mouth. And right before he's about to curse at her at the jolt of pain she had ignited in his lower abdomen, she does something that surprises him. She'd always been full of surprises.

It is there, before the car is parked and before they're ready to move on out, when she intertwines their fingers together despite his casual rudeness and their previous bickering.

He accidentally allows emotions to get the better of him for a good two seconds, tops; yet she does not miss the hint of a smile at his lips.

"I've missed you, Danny," Henley states quietly, but content.

He hadn't known, until now, how reassuring her affection would feel. Something consumes him then, something he hadn't felt for years that's triggered by her very presence, and whatever it is (despite the shortage of sentimentality within him)—he hopes to hold onto it.

"Me, too."

/

They've done it. Escaped in success, vanishing from the crowd in a blink of an eye and is left with a legacy after a magnificent _adieu_. The ties between the four are now broken, relinquished and now free. He should feel satisfied, but he isn't, especially when he catches a glimpse of her wrapping loose arms around Jack and (the _repulsing_) Merritt.

After giving him the usual cold shoulder, she shoots him a playful smirk before waltzing towards him in those heels that make her bare legs look extremely nice beneath her dark skirt—and for awhile he can't seem to take his eyes away.

And then there are her eyes, patient (for once) and large, contributing to the hammering in his chest.

"Henley," he begins, at his loss for words.

"Daniel," there's a curve on her lips that tells him she knows something he doesn't know, and he decides that _no_—she is not going to win the upper hand this time.

He internally _prays_ that he's not stuttering. "I have a proposition for you."

And just like that, the smile disappears just as the Four Horsemen had. "Are you seriously bothering to give me a business offer to work for you again? You're _unbelievable_."

And that's when he finds himself fiddling with bare hands and fumbling with a mess of words because only _she_ could make him feel this lost with her damned accusations and that stupid, haughty _essence_.

"No—_no_," he utters, flustered. (for about the umpteenth time thanks to this goddamn girl) The fact that her eyes narrow down on his only make him all the more nervous, and he knows he's about to sacrifice his pride when he continues. "I don't want to talk about business or money or anything to do with us working as magicians together because I've had enough of arguing over who is right—which is _me_, for that matter—and I'm just—You're _marvelous_. And I've been successful without you, and it's obvious that you have been doing the same, but since you left, it's been different; empty in ways that I can't cure unless you're—"

A hand cups his face and finally brings his orbs to meet hers as his incessant rambling is put to an abrupt halt with a fixture of their gaze.

"You haven't heard my proposition," he interrupts their silence and she realizes his asshole quality will _always_ be a part of him. Henley's eyebrow arches in a physical _well, I'm waiting_, being the diva she always had been. "I propose you be my girlfriend."

He hopes to catch her off guard, drown in the awe she's always been triumphant in leaving him in. He's immediately thrown off when the palm of her hand that had been sentimentally cupping the side of his face claps against his cheek in hot friction.

"_What the hell, Henley_?" It burns and he learns that this is what he deserves for playing with fire.

"That's for letting me go so easily," her voice is wrapped in a sick, yet playful venom. And then she grabs both sides of his jaw with those slender fingers of hers and pushes her forehead against is gently, mouth moving less than a centimeter away from his own, her breath on his chin. "And this is for us."

She smiles against his lips when she pulls him in for another round of shock and warmth and fire, bursting from the both of them, craving for what had been rightfully theirs to begin with.

"What took you so long?" She laughs, her spunk never failing him. She really was full of wonder. Eyes locked on hers and a smile he can't seem to pry off, he answers.

"Arrogance."

**.**

**.**

**.**

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_fin_.

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**a/n:** so i watched this movie twice and the amount of butterflies i get during the entire two hours are inevitable. i love this film so much and this pairing is gold, with the little cute, subtle moments in between.  
i'm not very proud of this fic, despite it being time consuming. but i did hope you enjoyed it.

tell me your thoughts?


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